"May we all be hurrahing this time next week," returned Andrews. "Here,
George, as you go out give this letter to the sentry outside, to be sent
off to-morrow in the camp mail." As he spoke he took the sealed note from
the army trunk, and handed it to the boy. "It is written to the young
woman I am engaged to marry," he explained, "and if we all get out of this
bridge-burning business with our heads on our shoulders you can come dance
at my wedding, and be my best man."

"I'd dance at twenty weddings for you," enthusiastically cried George, who
was beginning to have a great admiration for his new friend.

"You don't want me to be married twenty times, do you, my boy?" protested
Andrews, smiling.

"I would do a great deal to oblige you," retorted George. Then, after
warmly grasping his leader by the hand, he bounded out of the tent. The
night was black, and the rain was still descending in a veritable torrent,
but to the lad everything seemed clear and rosy. He only saw before him a
mighty adventure--and that, to his ardent, youthful spirit, made the whole
world appear charming.

CHAPTER II

NEARING THE GOAL

It was the Thursday afternoon succeeding the Monday night described in the
former chapter. On the north bank of the Tennessee River, not far from the
town of Jasper, three drenched figures might be discerned. They were
looking somewhat longingly in the direction of a white frame house not
fifty yards away from the stream, which, swollen by the recent storms, was
in a particularly turbulent mood. There was nothing very attractive about
the building save that it suggested shelter from the rain without, and
that the smoke curling up from its large chimney held forth vague hopes of
a palatable supper. Certainly there was little in the landscape itself to
tempt any one to remain outdoors. The three wanderers seemed to be of this
opinion, for they suddenly made a move towards the house. They were
roughly dressed, their clothes were soaking, and their high boots bore the
evidence of a long, muddy tramp across country.

"Well," grumbled one of them, a thick-set, middle-aged man, with a
good-humored expression and a four-days' growth of iron-gray beard on his
face; "why did I leave home and home cooking to enlist in the army and
then wander over the earth like this?"

"Mr. Watson!" exclaimed the person next to him, in a tone of boyish
surprise; "how can you talk like that? Why, _I_ am having the time of my